Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

Sent an email to CS today since this is the second month they haven't shipped my order before the next month announce date. Got an automated response within the hour saying they cancelled my ticket, don't worry my order will eventually ship. Not the most reassuring. Hopefully it doesn't disappear from my order page like last month.
 
Bluecloud777 said:
Very glad your order arrived today 👍☀🙂 thanks a lot for your good wishes, I'll post them when I get them. 🎉🎶

So for tonight I'll probably be getting Albert King, White Stripes and El-P unless something unexpected should be popping up in swaps which according to VMP should be very unlikely, but you never know.
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Thank you and I look forward to seeing them soon 🔭 That sounds like a brilliant selection! Exactly the same for me bar looking to pick up Nick Hakim for cheaper through an add-on. I think Albert King will sound fantastic and with us both getting I Wanna Get Funky we can look forward to a night of King in the future! 👑🔥

Like you I'll also be looking keenly for any unexpected swaps too, even if it's a slim chance 🤞!!
 
MikeH said:
It seemed to me that lately most of the newer store exclusives were over $27. I could be wrong though and maybe thats just the ones I was interested in. I remember Nick Hakim and Shabaka were both pretty pricey but maybe just because they are 2xLPs.

I think, overall, people who have been members for awhile are also getting the raw end of the deal here. Whereas you used to be able to swap for, say Shabaka or Nick Hakim, with a $23 add-on, it seems that may not be the case anymore. Part of this might be because of COVID and plants being swamped that they are simply running out of items that are in stock and pre-order leads seem to be longer and longer lately. There's also just less stock I think because a lot of people seem to have not liked the ROTM choices lately so people are swapping more. I quit my membership last month because of a myriad of reasons, but the lack of swaptions was probably the biggest one. I wasn't liking the ROTMs and swaptions were so drastically limited because I either had the records, could buy them cheaper on discogs or they weren't available in swaps and after a week of waiting for an email, I was told by CS that they could not manually swap for any of the albums I wanted.

The other solution is to do what Secretly Society does and let you pause for a month if you don't like the current choices. I have a feeling though that VMP would royally screw this up.
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They seem to be tightening up their rules to save them some money. It was bound to happen.
 
I was planning on getting De Stijl, but now I'm not sure. I guess maybe I'll swap for El-P and then swap for De Stijl again when it is actually available? Weird predicament they've created.
 
dhodo said:
I was planning on getting De Stijl, but now I'm not sure. I guess maybe I'll swap for El-P and then swap for De Stijl again when it is actually available? Weird predicament they've created.
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I'm not sure how the delay for White Stripes will play out, but keep in mind they have very many fans and De Stijl may sell out this month. Maybe due to the delay it won't, hard to guess.
 
Kyuuji said:
I think Albert King will sound fantastic and with us both getting I Wanna Get Funky we can look forward to a night of King in the future! 👑🔥
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Did you decide for the Discogs copy or the Amazon marketplace one from Switzerland? Yes, I'm really glad I found out about Albert King by him being classics this month. I know he also was part of the Blue Note Anthology they had put out back then, but wasn't able to afford that. I will have a look at his other work too. 🙂 Good luck getting I wanna get funky soon. 🎶
 
Bluecloud777 said:
I'm not sure how the delay for White Stripes will play out, but keep in mind they have very many fans and De Stijl may sell out this month. Maybe due to the delay it won't, hard to guess.
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Anyone know the last time they actually sold out of an Essentials quickly?

I wouldn't be too upset to miss De Stijl unless there is a definitive upgrade in sound/pressing quality from the standard release though. We'll see if they give more details on that today.
 
dhodo said:
Anyone know the last time they actually sold out of an Essentials quickly?

I wouldn't be too upset to miss De Stijl unless there is a definitive upgrade in sound/pressing quality from the standard release though. We'll see if they give more details on that today.
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I think the Queen one was mostly sold out in the first month, I think there have been some copies in swaps the next month. But then they also had an error on the cover when I remember correctly. Yes, let's see if they will reveal more.
 
There's an awful lot of hand wringing going on here with little, to no actual information at hand. The only way this new credit system is bad for anyone, is if the swaps become severely limited, there isn't really any indication of that yet. Sure they posted some titles that would be available in swaps, they didn't post all of them however. IF it ends up that only 4 or 5 exclusives are in there then yes, that's a step back. But maybe wait and see what's in there before coming to a conclusion that this is bad for everyone.
In terms of internationals getting a better deal out of this somehow, we don't. We pay far more for our memberships than US based members, so of course we get a few more credits per month, but those credits aren't given to us for free, those are direct dollar values of how much we pay. So if we're able to get an exclusive in store with our ROTM credits, and a US member falls short, it's because they haven't paid as much as us therefore they don't have as many credits. It's not a "deal" for us at all. Also don't forget we have to pay the exchange rate on these memberships, so up in Canada we pay a full 40% more than the US dollar value of our memberships. My monthly ROTM costs me $48 in Canadian funds. So yes, getting $36 back in credits may seem like a deal, trust me it isn't.

And I did not see anything that stated you can't still manually ask for a swap. I mean with CS times being what they are good luck, but I don't believe that this avenue has been shut down or anything.

Ultimately I think this is a good thing UNLESS they severally limit available swaps. In which case yes, it's probably a net loss for members. But swapping for more valued albums has always been a privilege, not a right... and as much as I'd prefer to be able to do it, and I may still be able to, I understand them adjusting the way this is done. And ultimately this now means that you aren't forced to buy an album you don't want month to month which I think is a great thing. Also the idea of using credits for an AP title if theres no swap I'm interested in is not a bad thing by any means.
 
Mather said:
There's an awful lot of hand wringing going on here with little, to no actual information at hand. The only way this new credit system is bad for anyone, is if the swaps become severely limited, there isn't really any indication of that yet. Sure they posted some titles that would be available in swaps, they didn't post all of them however. IF it ends up that only 4 or 5 exclusives are in there then yes, that's a step back. But maybe wait and see what's in there before coming to a conclusion that this is bad for everyone.
In terms of internationals getting a better deal out of this somehow, we don't. We pay far more for our memberships than US based members, so of course we get a few more credits per month, but those credits aren't given to us for free, those are direct dollar values of how much we pay. So if we're able to get an exclusive in store with our ROTM credits, and a US member falls short, it's because they haven't paid as much as us therefore they don't have as many credits. It's not a "deal" for us at all. Also don't forget we have to pay the exchange rate on these memberships, so up in Canada we pay a full 40% more than the US dollar value of our memberships. My monthly ROTM costs me $48 in Canadian funds. So yes, getting $36 back in credits may seem like a deal, trust me it isn't.

And I did not see anything that stated you can't still manually ask for a swap. I mean with CS times being what they are good luck, but I don't believe that this avenue has been shut down or anything.

Ultimately I think this is a good thing UNLESS they severally limit available swaps. In which case yes, it's probably a net loss for members. But swapping for more valued albums has always been a privilege, not a right... and as much as I'd prefer to be able to do it, and I may still be able to, I understand them adjusting the way this is done. And ultimately this now means that you aren't forced to buy an album you don't want month to month which I think is a great thing. Also the idea of using credits for an AP title if theres no swap I'm interested in is not a bad thing by any means.
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I don't think anyone was saying internationals get a "better deal." Just that the price difference between VMP exclusives and other variants is often less for international subscribers, so if cost is object at all, it often makes more financial sense for them to go with VMP exclusives over other variants. If that were the case for me, I would consider a lot more VMP exclusives. With the crazy price difference for my options, I don't consider them outside of swaps. At least that's all I meant.
 
dhodo said:
I don't think anyone was saying internationals get a "better deal." Just that the price difference between VMP exclusives and other variants is often less for international subscribers, so if cost is object at all, it often makes more financial sense for them to go with VMP exclusives over other variants. If that were the case for me, I would consider a lot more VMP exclusives. With the crazy price difference for my options, I don't consider them outside of swaps. At least that's all I meant.
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Yes, it's pretty much the only game in town for us. TT Lab, Secretly and Newbury all cost up to $25 USD to ship a single album. So VMP benefits us greatly, but I'd change places with your vinyl buying situation any day of the week. Having options would sure be nice. I'm sure if swaps are greatly limited it will make some US based members rethink their memberships. But really it's SUPPOSED to be about the ROTMs and as far as I know almost no other ROTM "club" has the ability to swap monthly records. None that I'm aware of at least, though you can put memberships on hold in some cases. Ultimately we'll have to see but I don't believe this credit system is a bad thing.
 
Mather said:
Yes, it's pretty much the only game in town for us. TT Lab, Secretly and Newbury all cost up to $25 USD to ship a single album. So VMP benefits us greatly, but I'd change places with your vinyl buying situation any day of the week. Having options would sure be nice. I'm sure if swaps are greatly limited it will make some US based members rethink their memberships. But really it's SUPPOSED to be about the ROTMs and as far as I know almost no other ROTM "club" has the ability to swap monthly records. None that I'm aware of at least, though you can put memberships on hold in some cases. Ultimately we'll have to see but I don't believe this credit system is a bad thing.
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Secretly allows swaps via email to just about anything they have in stock. The other thing about them is that my membership costs $12.50 a month versus $30 (after tax) with VMP. I'm watching carefully and this may push me to be out (again) if swaps dry up.
 
wmeugene said:
Secretly allows swaps via email to just about anything they have in stock. The other thing about them is that my membership costs $12.50 a month versus $30 (after tax) with VMP. I'm watching carefully and this may push me to be out (again) if swaps dry up.
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$12.50... Christ.
You know what I can buy for $12.50?
Fucking nothing.
I CAN'T EVEN BUY A BIG MAC MEAL FOR $12.50
If it wasn't for the fact that you live in a country currently run by a racist mouldy cheeto with all the intelligence of an actual rotting bag of garbage, I'd say you are soooooo lucky.

But you do, so I won't.
 
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Has anyone who ordered Jason Isbell's Reunions from VMP received it yet? I pre-ordered from VMP, but am no longer a member so I was curious when I might expect it to ship or if I should be emailing CS before they get swamped with De Stijl emails. Thanks
 
MikeH said:
IMO the fairest thing is as follows:
* have member and non-member pricing. Similar to what they have done with Fiona’s exclusives. Secretly Society does this for members too (10% off for members).

*have TRUE VMP exclusives. Members only. Never open up store exclusives to non-members.

*allow swaps for anything in stock.

*allow swap for credit if you don’t want any swaps or the ROTM and want to buy a preorder instead

This makes it fair to everyone, makes a membership worth it and gives people a lot of flexibility.
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This is definitely the way to go.
 
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